Auschwitz-Birkenau

Today was a difficult day for both of us – we traveled to the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp outside of Krakow. The sheer number of people visiting the camp surprised me. At first, the crowds made it hard to get any kind of feeling, because we seemed to be shuffled from one room to the next. Jen and I broke away from our guided tour, and it was then that we began to be able to realize where we were and what we were seeing. Each prisoner wore the stripped uniform, but for the first time the badges sewn on to them struck me. All Jewish people wore a yellow triangle, and a coordinating inversed triangle relating to their crime. Most wore black for the “crime” of being Jewish, but I guess mine would have been pink.

When we traveled the short distance to Birkenau, the location of the planned “final solution,” we had our breath taken away. Birkenau is ten times the size of Auschwitz. The barbed wire, the barracks meant for 52 horses but instead held up to 1200 humans, the train tracks, and the sorting house, all silenced us. This is where I lost great-grandparents, cousins, aunts and uncles. It was a machine for the extermination of the other, and the hated. Jen and I walked down the platform between the train tracks. We walked down through the barracks that were simple storehouses for the imprisoned awaiting death.

Back in Krakow, we decided to simply sit and eat cheese at a local café. It was nice to have a break from our day of travel and solemn silence. Jen and I noticed we had a new addition to our room in our hostel, and we were pleasantly surprised to meet a delightful Washingtonian girl traveling by herself. Mosbey just finished her first year teaching, and is spending the summer traveling gain perspective on life (no small task, but she seems to be ahead of the game.) We enjoyed a great dinner with her in a quaint café in the old Jewish square. Fresh flowers, candles, and knit doilies were on every table. It was a nice evening, and a nice way to refresh after our tour.

– Kendra